My Top Five 2011 Posts

This year has had a lot of ups and downs for our family.  My poor little blog here has been sadly neglected, though I hope to change that as we head into the new year and we get a fresh start.  I have a lot of projects ready to go, now to make the time to create them and share them!

Here are my top five posts of 2011:

#5 Retired Disney Cricut Cartridges
I have finally collected all the Disney cartridges.  If you are still looking to purchase any one of these cartridges, I have still seen some available on ebay, as well as Cricut.com itself.

Getting Organized ~ Using Your Cricut to Label Your Totes

Joey's Totes Labelled for His Toys
Cricut Cartridge Used ~ Mickey Font

This year, I discovered how to cut vinyl with my Cricut machine.  I since have become a labeling machine, especially when it comes to my children's toy totes.  In order to cut vinyl, you do need to purchase the Deep Cut Blade Housing (this comes with the needed blade).  You also need to purchase the sheets of vinyl, which, for the Cricut brand,comes in several colors:

• Billiard (green)
• Burnt Umber
• Chocolate
• Cotton
• Dark Blue
• Gray
• Ice Blue
• Latte
• Light Brown
• Lime Green
• Peacock Blue
• Raven
• Rose Pink
• Ruby Red
• Yellow

A Tote Tip for Getting Organized in 2012

This is about 1/10 of the number of totes we have!

As we start to put away all the new things that Santa and family members have given to our kids, I am always looking for ways to keep their toys organized, yet have them easily accessible when they want to play with them.  I actually purchase totes for each type of toy for the kids' rooms.  This has become a great way to keep things organized, but yet have all the pieces they need to play something all in one place.  Totes can become a very expensive investment, but I was given some advice by one of the associates at our local Wal-Mart.

I had been looking for totes to organize my scrapbooking paper.  There was only one left of the particular type I was looking for. When I asked an associate when they would be restocking the totes, she gave me the best advice.  She said that if you go to Wal-Mart.com, you can order totes by the case.  Not only can you get multiples of the same size, but they have never been opened.  This means that they won't be dusty and scraped up from sitting on the store shelves.  She also added that by purchasing them by the case, they are much cheaper than buying them in the store.

I raced home to see just what they had online.  I was quite excited that the online selection was of course much more diverse than in store.  On the particular item I was purchasing, I saved $1.50 per tote purchasing it online instead of in the store.  Even better, I used the "Site to Store" option, meaning as soon as they were in, Wal-Mart e-mailed me my pick up slip.  I drove to Wal-Mart and picked up my totes, which meant no shipping costs.  I used this method for the kids' toy totes too, which I bought by the case.  The particular type I purchased had six to a case.

In the end, I probably won't need to buy any more cases that include six of a particular size, but it is definitely a cost effective way to get started with your organization if you are looking to purchase totes.

How do you keep your kids' toys organized?

Make sure you check in tomorrow to see how I use my Cricut machine for come quick and easy labels for our totes!

Rules for Dating a Marine's Daughter

I came across this article today from a tweet on Twitter, and I just had to share it.  I am the daughter of a Marine, so I had a good laugh with this one from the Marine Corps Web Log.  Enjoy!

Rules for Dating a Marine's Daughter

Hallmark's 2010 Snowman Band Gains a New Member and Continues Their Holiday Tour into 2011

Last year, I purchased Hallmark's Wireless Snowman Band.  This was a great addition to our holiday decor.  If you have not seen the Snowman Band, you can find them, as well as a video of their 2010 Holiday Tour in my post Have You Met Hallmark's Snowman Band?  This year, they have gained another member - Trombone Tony, who has brought along two more songs to add to their playlist ~ Joy to the World and Good King Wenceslas.  We were all very excited to see this series continue.  Hopefully, Hallmark will continue to add members for years to come.  All three kids are waiting for a Snowman Drummer to appear!

We also have discovered something new this year that we did not know from last year.  If you press and hold down a button on one of the snowmen, they will randomly play one song about every two minutes.

Here are the two songs Trombone Tony brings to the band (you can find the rest of the band's playlist in the post I listed above):

Minnie Mouse Thank You Cards

My youngest daughter recently celebrated her fourth birthday (hard to believe she is 4!!).  One of the things I instill in my children is letting people know you appreciate them coming to help celebrate their birthdays and to show thanks if they should happen to also bring a gift.  I am not a big fan of the store bought thank you cards, but that is simply because I can rarely find ones that reflect my children's personalities or the ones that have room for my kids to "write" in them.

For every thank you card they write, the first line is always a thank you statement, followed by something they liked about the gifts they were given or something that they did with that person while they were at the party. It is a great way to get my kids to express themselves and also to see just how they viewed each of their gifts, meaning which part of a gift was most impressive.  For example, my daughter was given a doll with all sorts of accessories.  When we were writing that thank you (to her sister - Emily insisted on writing that one not me!), she said, "thank you for my new doll.  I really loved the princess spoon to feed her."  Of all the things that came in the pack with this doll, she was really impressed that her new baby had her own princess looking spoon. Who knew?

Ever since my children could hold a crayon, they "signed" their own cards.  This year, all three of my children could sign their actual names.  Sniffle, sniffle - another milestone I am excited about but also that means they are growing up!!  Just a few years ago, most of their signatures were swirls, slashes or any other type of marking they could fit into the space of the card.  So with all that, this year Emily and I created Minnie Mouse thank you cards to coordinate with her Minnie Mouse party.  Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of all the different versions of the card.  For each thank you card, she personally chose which color bow the Minnie should have.  The one you see here is for my mom and dad.  Emily decided to give my parents a green bow because Grammie loves Christmas and green is a Christmas color.  Other versions of the card included bows with yellow checkered paper and some had blue with stars.

One of my favorite Cricut cartridges
& the one I used for this project

Materials to Create the Minnie Thank You Card

• Red Card ~ 4-1/4" by 5-1/2"
• White Cardstock ~ 4" by 5-1/4"
• Black Cardstock
• Skin Tone Cardstock
• White Cardstock 
• Pink Cardstock
• Various Patterned Paper for Bows
• Cricut Mickey Font Cartridge
• Cuttlebug Seeing Spots Embossing Folder

Steps to Create

1. Run the 4-1/4" by 5-1/2" white cardstock through the Cuttlebug using the Seeing Spots Embossing folder
2. Center the embossed cardstock onto the front of the red card and adhere
3. Using the Mickey Font Cricut Cartridge, cut the Minnie face shape using the black cardstock at 6" using the "minnie" key
4. Cut the face layer from the skin colored cardstock using the "charm" function key, then the "minnie" key